t's one of those
crazy things you always hope will happen on television, although, given
the precautions and general uneventfulness of the medium, it almost never
does.

Fifteen years ago this week, professional wrestler
Jerry "The King" Lawler slapped comedian Andy Kaufman out of his
chair on Late Night with David Letterman, striking -- if only for
a moment -- through the plastic predictability of the small screen with
a flash of spontaneity that seemed to surprise everyone involved -- Kaufman,
Letterman, and even Lawler. "I promise you," he says today, "I
was in a dilemma right up until the last second."

NBC
was inundated with phone calls from people who wanted to know if the altercation
had been staged. Network lawyers interviewed the parties involved and determined
that the producers had no part in planning what eventually happened in the
segment.

There had been a plan, but Kaufman getting smacked
wasn't part of it. They were supposed to show footage of Lawler injuring
Kaufman with an apparently vicious piledriver move at the Mid-South Coliseum
three months earlier; Kaufman was supposed to apologize for making fun of
wrestling; Lawler was to apologize for the injury; and then Kaufman was
to burst into a rendition of "What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet
Love."

"You can see it in Andy's eyes and you can
see it in Letterman's eyes," says Lawler. "It's like, what's wrong
with this guy? Why ain't he doing what we all said we were going to do?"

And then he hit him. Unplanned, unpremeditated,
unknown to Kaufman, Lawler just smacked him, out of his chair, right there
on national television. That's the story.

IT ALL STARTED WITH A NIGHTCLUB act. Kaufman, who
was in 1982 starring in TV's Taxi as the indeterminately foreign
Latka Gravas, had been wrestling women from the audience in clubs and on
Saturday Night Live and had dubbed himself the World Intergender
Wrestling Champion, belt and all. It was a controversial act, done with
a seriousness that inspired shock and moral outrage. And if there was laughter,
it was nervous laughter, the kind Kaufman seemed to like best.

But it wasn't enough for Kauf-man. He went looking
for a way to bring his bit to real live wrestling fans, and after being
turned down by other organizations, he approached Eddie Marlin, promoter
of matches at the Mid-South Coliseum, which eventually led him to Memphis

"Andy, I guess, was a big wrestling fan as
a kid or something," Lawler says, as he reminisces about the Kaufman
feud over lunch at the Half Shell. "He idolized Nature Boy Buddy Rogers,
who was a big flamboyant bad guy. And so I think that this was an opportunity
for Andy to live out a childhood dream, and from the time he got the go-ahead,
he took on the personality of this Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. He sent some
video interviews in, saying that he was going to come to Memphis and challenge
some of the women of Memphis. But of course it wasn't a Latka interview
or an Andy Kaufman interview, it was a bad-guy wrestler interview."

Kaufman's taunting challenges were hugely successful
by the only standard that matters in the world of professional wrestling:
The fans hated him. "They came out in droves," says Lawler, "not
only to see Andy, but they also wanted to see him get his butt beat."

The deal was this: The audience picked the women
he would wrestle and $1,000 went to the one who could pin him. In the course
of four matches at the Mid-South Coliseum, none of them could, although
one came close.

Foxy was a big girl who looked to outweigh Kaufman
by at least a hundred pounds. As Kaufman was strutting around the ring,
bragging about how easily he had pinned the earlier challengers, the bell
rang and she was all over him.

"He hit on the mat, and you would have thought
the roof was coming off the coliseum," Lawler remembers. "This
was the first time anybody had done anything to Andy so far. She grabbed
him, and I mean she was tearing him up. She was throwing him everywhere."

Kaufman finally prevailed, but it had been close
enough to warrant a rematch, this time with Lawler coaching Foxy from the
corner.

When Kaufman pinned her again in the rematch, he
apparently got a little carried away, rubbing her face into the mat and
refusing to let up. The fans went wild, yelling at Lawler to do something.
So he did. He got in the ring and pushed Kaufman off her, which sent the
comedian into a rage, screaming into the microphone that he was going to
sue everyone, punctuating the threats with his trademark refrain, "I'm
from Hollywood."

He was a big star. You couldn't do that to him.

WHETHER
KAUFMAN WAS serious then or ever during his ensuing feud with Lawler is
anybody's guess, which is what makes the whole chain of events so inscrutable.

Even I'm From Hollywood -- a documentary
film made after Kaufman's 1984 death that chronicles his wrestling exploits
-- doesn't help. Compiled from footage of matches, interviews, and television
appearances, it includes Kaufman's friends and colleagues talking about
his obsession with wrestling. Robin Williams, Tony Danza, and Marilu Henner
offer conflicting testimony as to whether Kaufman was truly mad or just
playing a joke that no one else was in on. He wore his World Intergender
Champion belt and the thermal underwear he wrestled in under his clothes,
says Williams, giving at least the impression that he had somehow slipped
into wrestling's fantasy world.

On the other hand, Kaufman's friend and confidant
Bob Zmuda says at one point, "Andy was quite sane."

Watching Kaufman rail against women, Lawler, and
Memphis in the taped, wrestling-style interviews, it's hard to decide if
he's a madman or a comic genius. You just can't tell.

LAWLER COULDN'T EIther. Even as Kaufman stood outside
the ring threatening to sue everyone in sight. "I didn't know what
the deal was," Lawler says. "He wouldn't let anybody in on what
he was doing, and you never knew if what he was doing was real or if it
was a put-on."

After Kaufman threatened to sue, Lawler challenged
him to a match to settle their differences. What really happened next is
unclear, although Kaufman's statements and Lawler's recollection agree that
the two never got a chance to plan out the match. "I sort of think
that Andy thought that once he accepted the challenge that we might meet
somewhere and talk over what we were going to do. But he never asked to
do that. I never could understand why he would accept that or agree to that
if he didn't think there was going to be some kind of meeting between he
and I, something mutually agreed upon where he wouldn't get hurt. [Instead]
he just showed up, like he was showing up for a match."

Kaufman, on the other hand, told reporters before
the match that he was scared he was going to get hurt and that he couldn't
understand why Lawler hadn't answered his requests to meet and work up a
plan.

With neither one knowing what the other was thinking,
Lawler says he saw no choice but to wrestle -- and wrestle for real.

"I think, I have to hurt him," Lawler
remembers telling people who asked if he intended to injure Kaufman. "For
the credibility of the way I make my living. You know, if I can let a little
150-pound comedian come in there and have a match with the Southern Heavyweight
Wrestling Champion and walk out unscathed, I think the people would just
think we were a joke."

In other words, things had gotten out of hand.
It was one of those times when the integrity of wrestling was on the line
and only a burst of true violence could vouch for it.

ALTHOUGH ITS DETRACTORS claim to be certain, the
subject of whether wrestling is "real" or not somehow remains
a matter for debate. Wrestlers are like magicians, but instead of refusing
to explain their tricks, they refuse to admit that there's any trickery
at all. And that's why claims that the sport is fake always come with a
question attached: "Wrestling is fake. Right?"

You won't get an answer to that question, and even
when you do -- as when Lawler told the Mississippi Gaming Commission wrestling
wasn't real last year in order to avoid paying a fee to promote matches
at Lady Luck Casino -- the motivation for the confession is sufficiently
opportunistic to keep the question open.

If
the question gets too serious and evidence becomes necessary, it can be
provided. Just ask John Stossel, who as a reporter for the television news
magazine 20/20 asked pro wrestler Dr. D if the sport was fake in
1984 and was answered with a pair of boxed ears. He was eventually awarded
a $425,000 settlement.

The rivalry between Lawler and Kaufman that climaxed
on the Letterman show looks like that: an instance of a wrestler
defending his sport by providing brutal proof of its reality.

ON APRIL 5, 1982, KAUFMAN evaded Lawler's grip
for a while, mocking him from across the ring and stepping over the ropes
every time he got too close. Finally, an exasperated Lawler allowed the
comedian to put him in a headlock in the middle of the ring. That was the
end. Lawler picked Kaufman off his feet and threw him to the mat and proceeded
to slam his head into the canvas with two successive piledrivers. Kaufman
lay on the mat for 15 minutes before he was taken by ambulance to St. Francis
hospital, where he spent three days in traction.

The news accounts of the days following the match
-- local, national, and wire -- are filled with modifiers like "apparently"
and "alleged" as reporters guarded themselves against an eventual
revelation that the whole thing was a hoax. Such a revelation never came.
Officials at St. Francis assured the press that Kaufman was truly injured,
that they were at full occupancy and couldn't afford to waste time or space
on a gag.

George Lapides, who was and is outspoken about
wrestling being phony, entered into a strange paradox by devoting his column
in the Press-Scimitar to expressing his outrage at Lawler's real
barbarity. Wrestling was bad because it was fake, but somehow became even
worse when it appeared, for a moment, to be real. Sportwriters everywhere
who were loath to dignify pro wrestling with ink, puzzled over the anomaly
of a real injury in a world everyone knew was bogus through and through.

Lawler was brazen, spouting off to the press about
how he'd meant to injure Kaufman, about how he was glad he had, and about
how the comedian deserved it for mocking wrestling.

Kaufman was sheepish. "Before the match, I
thought wrestling was phony," he told a reporter, "I guess I learned
different." He vowed to never enter the ring again, and on Saturday
Night Live shortly after the incident, footage of the bout was shown
as Kaufman -- still wearing a neck brace -- offered a watery-eyed apology
to those he had offended with his wrestling exploits.

No one laughed. Not even nervously.

THREE MONTHS LATER, THE TWO combatants were sitting
there, watching the tape again, talking to David Letterman. Kaufman was
still wearing his neck brace as Lawler mulled over what he should do. "I'm
thinking if I just go up there and apologize," Lawler says, "everybody
down here's going to think less of me, and I'm doing all this stuff that's
helping Andy, but then I'm thinking what can I do?"

We all
know the answer he came up with. Before the segment faded to commercial,
Lawler stood up and slapped Kaufman clear out of his chair. Kaufman responded
after the break by tossing a cup of coffee in Lawler's lap and pronouncing
a stream of profanities, pounding on Letterman's desk as the host fiddled
with papers like he was trying to mind his own business.

Lawler says he received telegrams from wrestling
promoters across the country, thanking him for taking care of Andy Kaufman.

KAUFMAN DIED OF LUNG CANcer May 16, 1984, at the
age of 35, just two years after his feud with Lawler. Between the bout at
the Mid-South Coliseum and the Letterman episode, the rivalry stands
as the ultimate chapter in the persisting legend of the late-comedian. Often
said to be "ahead of his time," it may be that his time is approaching.
I'm From Hollywood, Taxi, and his SNL appearances can be found
all over the cable dial, and a biopic of his life to be directed by Milos
Forman and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski -- the trio
behind The People vs. Larry Flynt -- is in the early stages of production
and could be out by the end of 1998. Some even believe that Kaufman isn't
dead at all, just pulling the ultimate joke.

There is no more wrestling at the Mid-South Coliseum,
where more than 8,000 fans came to see the Kaufman/Lawler match. The King
now plies his trade on weekly USWA broadcasts and on the USA Network's Monday
Night Raw, as well as at the Big One Expo Center on North Hollywood
and Lady Luck Casino in Mississippi. "It was a legendary event,"
he says of his feud with Kaufman. "It really changed the direction
of the professional wrestling industry."

KAUFMAN WAS MADE FOR WREStling. As a comedian whose
bits included reading The Great Gatsby aloud until the crowd grew
tired and left, he understood the value of wrestling's central tenant: If
you don't let anyone in on it, no one will ever know for sure what to make
of it. People might think you're kidding, but if you refuse to drop character
and simply ask them what they think is so funny, they'll have no choice
but to laugh, nervously.

Even beyond their connections to Elvis -- Kaufman
was known for an uncanny impersonation that continues even after his death
in the Elvis-like rumors that he is still alive; Lawler's nickname, of course,
is "The King" -- the two had that tenant in common.

"He
wouldn't let anybody in on what he was doing and you never knew if what
he was doing was real or if it was a put." Lawler's description of
Kaufman sounds like a description of Lawler himself. If the comedian needed
a conspirator who would never give up the secret, who better than Lawler?

The partnership between the two actually continued
well after their appearance on Letterman, and Kaufman did not give
up wrestling as he promised. The rivalry continued in arenas around the
county with plots and plans and double-crosses, and the two met in many
rematches. One such match, held in Louisville a year later, garnered only
a brief article in the local paper. The outcome was the same. Lawler finished
Kaufman off with a pile-driver.

As a result of that first match, however, both
got what they wanted. Kaufman is still hailed as a comic genius, and Lawler
has a tape or two to serve as a warning to those who would claim that his
sport is phony. Whatever really happened, it blurred the line between reality
and pretend, leaving everyone wondering about the difference.

If the truth could ever be found out, we might
discover that the whole thing was staged and call it a big hoax. But Kaufman
picked his partner well. Lawler knows how to ride the thin line between
truth and fiction and makes a living by not separating the two.

In other words, we'll never know, and even if one
assumes the whole thing was staged, the Kaufman/Lawler feud will continue
to come with a question attached.

Because it was all just a big joke. Right?

Andy Kaufman
- More about Andy Kaufman, featuring his stint on Fridays, video clips, his
last days and more...